Poetry with Riemke Ensing

I am very pleased to introduce you to Riemke Ensing, a highly regarded poet of national significance who will be delivering two half-day poetry writing workshops during the Winter Workshops this year.

T'ai Chi

From Poems for China
(for Zhang Weiping in prison)

If the space where they keep you
the next years is just a little
larger than the length of your outstretched
arm, you’ll be able to visualize clouds
and move them away
with a slow graceful turn
of your hand should they frown
or darken to form rain. A few movements
will shape you trees to shade your head
and the hard board of your bed
will be earth sprung bright with flowers
and new grass. You might be tempted
to tense a melon out of the early vapours of air
and imagine, oh imagine that cool caress for breakfast.
These acts will make you
strong, subtle as ink brush-stroked on paper
all those centuries ago.
Remember the story told of the woman in prison.
She knew Beethoven well. From inside
each day she conducted a quartet. Each part separately
in her head, then putting all four instruments together
silently as she sat there in solitary confinement.
It took years, but the music lifted the sky
into that darkness, and the sun
gave back her life.

 Riemke Ensing was born in The Netherlands, in 1939 and immigrated to New Zealand in 1951.  Speaking no English, she first went to school in Dargaville, then to Ardmore Teachers’ Training College, after which she taught for two years, returning to the College to lecture in English literature for a year.  She again became a fulltime student and on graduating M.A (Hons) in 1967, was appointed as a tutor in the English Department at the University of Auckland, where she taught till 1999.  She has since been appointed an Honorary Research Fellow (Faculty of Arts) and in 2002 was a Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellow. 

Her poetry is represented extensively in anthologies and her work has appeared in many publications both in New Zealand and overseas.

‘Ensing’s fascination with art pervades her work, providing her with a significant European / Antipodean matrix.’
The Cambridge Guide to Women’s Writing in English

‘The most striking and original characteristic of her poetry is its extremely visual quality … a whole system of connections on an international as well as a historical level, suggesting that it is above all through art that the lines of communication are kept open.’
Simone Oettli, University of Geneva, in World Literature Today, Spring 2001

For more information about Riemke you can visit her website.

Riemke Ensing's poetry writing workshop will be held on Wednesday 9th and Thursday 10th July, between 10am and 1pm. Places in this workshop are limited to 20 participants. Riemke will also be delivering a reading of her poetry, followed by a Q&A session, at the Motueka Library at 5:15pm on Tuesday 8th July. Entry to the reading is by gold coin donation.

If you would like to book a place in Riemke Ensing's poetry writing workshop, contact Pania on 03 5284115, or 022 3752559, or via email: manysmalldots@gmail.com.